With the popularity of Bake Off TV shows, we're probably all now familiar with the notion of competitive cake-making, and that's the theme behind Sweet Mess: Pastry Competition from Fantasia, PIKA Games and Lucky Duck. It's designed by Jonny Pac, Yoma and Antonio Zax, with art by Yoma and James Churchill, and it's a game where the 2-4 players are collecting ingredients to complete recipes to earn awards and, ultimately, amass points. The 'mess' of the title is probably inspired by the pun (a 'mess hall' is a refectory) but it mainly represents the spillage of ingredients on the main board: hygiene in this game's kitchen definitely falls below Code.
Shown here on Board's Eye View is the deluxe edition of Sweet Mess: Pastry Competition, and it's a delicious-looking game. It has 3D moulded trays for your individual player board along with chunky plastic poker chip ingredient tokens. On your turn you can take a single action or pay a coin to take both the actions at that spot on your board, but you can't remain on the same action spot in consecutive turns.
The 'mess' you make of the ingredients means there will increasingly be a mix of different ingredients in neighbouring pot, which is likely to help subsequent players... Players will be able to make use of their asymmetric cook's powers, and when you trade in ingredients to fulfil recipes you have decisions to take over how best to use those completed recipes to claim an additional bonus and to later earn a points-scoring award. Even tho' you're making desserts, you'd better not be too greedy over the bonuses you claim for your completed recipes: if you always go for the most generous bonus, your pastries will take longer to reach the reward stage so there's a risk the game could finish before you are able to maximise your points.
There's more - for example, the use of tool cards - but the core game is easy to play; it's really just a few fiddly subordinate rules that make this a game with just a tad too much going on to qualify as a 'gateway game', which is a pity as the theme, high production values and core gameplay would otherwise make this a great game for introducing newcomers to modern gaming. But if you don't mind a further few fiddly extra rules, the game comes with several optional modules - in effect, built-in expansions - which add further to its replayability.
Members of the Board's Eye View team compared the core game with Splendor (Space Cowboys). This certainly isn't a Splendor clone but if you're a fan of that game, then you'll certainly enjoy having a nibble of Sweet Mess: Pastry Competition. Oh, and there's a solitaire mode - tho' there you risk the embarrassment of failing to win a competition in which you are only entrant :-)